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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Two Muslim religious leaders say they were asked to leave a commercial airliner in Memphis on Friday and were told it was because the pilot refused to fly with them aboard.

Masudur Rahman, who is also an adjunct instructor of Arabic at the University of Memphis, said by phone from the terminal at Memphis International Airport that he and another imam had already been allowed to board their Delta Connection flight to Charlotte, N.C., before they were asked to get off the plane.

Transportation Security Administration spokesman Jon Allen in Atlanta confirmed the incident and said it was not initiated by that agency.

A Delta Air Lines spokeswoman said the flight was operated by Atlantic Southeast Airlines, which is also based in Atlanta.

"We take security and safety very seriously and the event is currently under investigation," Atlantic Southeast spokesman Jarek Beem said Friday evening.

Both passengers are Memphis-area residents. Rahman said he was dressed in traditional Indian clothing and his traveling companion was dressed in Arab garb, including traditional headgear.

Rahman said he and Mohamed Zaghloul, of the Islamic Association of Greater Memphis, were cleared by security agents and boarded the plane for an 8:40 a.m. departure.

The aircraft pulled away from the gate, but the pilot then announced the plane must return, Rahman said. When it did, the imams were asked to go back to the boarding gate where Rahman said they were told the pilot was refusing to accept them because some other passengers could be uncomfortable.

Rahman said Delta officials talked with the pilot for more than a half-hour, but he still refused.

The men were taken to a lounge and booked on a later flight. Beem said they flew on to Charlotte later Friday.

"We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused," Beem said.

The men contacted the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group in Washington, D.C.

"It's racism and bias because of our religion and appearance and because of misinformation about our religion." Rahman said. "If they understood Islam, they wouldn't do this."

He said a Delta manager apologized for the pilot's actions, but that he and Zaghloul never spoke directly with the pilot.

Ibrahim Hooper, of the American-Islamic organization, said the group will follow up with the airline and with the TSA to help ensure such incidents do not continue to occur.

Hooper said airline officials at Memphis tried to resolve the situation, but the pilot refused.

...Muslims in Bossier City, La., reported to police that a white male in a pick-up truck tampered with the doors of the Mosque and left pork on the door handles so worshippers would have to touch it to go inside.

...A mosque in New York is currently being targeted with a nearby hate sign and that a mosque in Maine was targeted with hate graffiti...

Do you think Muslim prayers should be allowed in school?

Several faith-based groups protested outside the Toronto District School Board's headquarters Monday over Muslim prayers taking place in a Toronto school.

For three years, hundreds of students have been praying in the cafeteria at Valley Park Middle School during their lunch hour. The school doesn’t run or pay for the service.

TDSB director of education Chris Spence said the decision to hold the prayer sessions was made in consultation with the school community.

The service is operated by members of the Valley Park community, and was un-opposed by parents of other students at the school before Ron Banerjee, claiming to represent a group called the Canadian Hindu Advocacy, began complaining earlier this year.

"When you have 400 students coming in and out of class...it's extremely disruptive," said Banerjee, whoorganized Monday's protest. "It's discriminatory. It raises lots of questions in terms of 'Why are Muslims alone being allowed to do this?' This is part of the Islam-ification of society."

Members of the Jewish Defence League of Canada and the Christian Heritage Group also took part in the protest.

80 per cent of Valley Park students are Muslim, and the school began the Friday services to prevent students from missing classes to pray at a nearby mosque.

The TDSB defended the sessions, saying it’s simply trying to accommodate the religious beliefs of its many Muslim students, as mandated by the Ontario Human Rights Code.

It said the issue is not one about religion in schools but about religious accommodation.

"We have a predominantly Muslim population in the student body, so the parents were asking for a space where we can provide for Friday prayers," board trustee, Shaun Chen previously told CityNews.

Banerjee doesn't buy it.

"If they want to accommodate the Muslim students, they get a one hour lunch break, the mosque is five minutes away, they can just tell them to pack a lunch and during your one-hour break go off to the mosque."

In the meantime, Canada's largest Hindu group, Canadian Hindu Network, says the views of the Canadian Hindu Advocacy are not representative of mainstream Hindus.

Washington (CNN) – Ten years after 9/11, Americans are wrestling with their opinions of Muslims, a new survey found, and where Americans get their TV news is playing a role in those opinions.

Nearly half of Americans would be uncomfortable with a woman wearing a burqa, a mosque being built in their neighborhood or Muslim men praying at an airport. Forty-one percent would be uncomfortable if a teacher at the elementary school in their community were Muslim.

Forty-seven percent of survey respondents said the values of Islam are at odds with American values.

The Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution conducted the survey and issued a report, "What it Means to be American: Attitudes in an Increasingly Diverse America 10 Years after 9/11."

“Americans are wrestling with fear, but on the other hand they're also wrestling with acceptance,” said Robert P. Jones, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute.

The results of the survey were announced Tuesday at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

One issue that seemed to divide respondents was sharia law.

Overall, 61% of respondents disagreed that Muslims want to establish sharia law in the U.S.

"2011 has been an enormously active year for this question," Jones said. "Forty-nine bills have been introduced in 29 states to ban sharia law. We asked the same question back in February, and only 23% of Americans agreed Muslims want to establish sharia as the law of the land. That number has gone up to 30%, so still a minority, but the minority has grown."

The numbers were also showed a correlation with where people went for their news.

Of Americans who say they trust Fox Newsthe most for their television news, 52% believe that Muslims are trying to establish sharia law in the United States. Sixty-eight percent of Fox viewers believed the values of Islam were at odds with American values.

The report says fewer than one-third of Americans who most trust broadcast news, CNN (20%) and public television (23%) believe that Muslims are trying to establish sharia.

"It's an emotional roller coaster," said Dr. Muqtedar Khan, a professor of political science at the University of Delaware. "I looked at this survey, and I'm really depressed."

Khan, a practicing Muslim, was particularly disturbed by the attitudes toward Muslims and what he called a misunderstanding of sharia law. "Sharia is just a prop, an attempt to say, 'we just don't know and like Muslims.' "

According to Jones, 2,450 Americans were reached by phone for the survey, and it had a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

'There is no uniformity in the way in which the Department of Justice applies the law at every level'

By Kari Huus Reporter - 9/6/2011

Imagine it is 5 a.m. and you’ve landed in New York after a 12-hour overseas flight. Standing in the line for U.S. citizens, you wait as a border agent asks passengers ahead a few cursory questions, then waves them through. Your family is instead ushered into a separate room for more than an hour of searching and questioning.

This was the welcome that Hassan Shibly, traveling with his wife and infant son, said they received in August 2010, when they returned to the United States from Jordan, after traveling to Mecca.

“Are you part of any Islamic tribe? Have you ever studied Islam full time? How many gods do you believe in?” “How many prophets do you believe in?” the agent at New York’s JFK Airport asked, according to Shibly, 24, a Syrian-born Muslim American. He said the agent searched his luggage, pulling out his Quran and a hand-held digital prayer counter.

“At the end — I guess (the agent) was trying to be nice — he said, ‘Sorry, I hope you understand we just have to make sure nothing gets blown up,’” said Shibly, a law school graduate who grew up in Buffalo.

A decade 9/11, Muslim American travelers say they are still paying the price for terror attacks carried out. At airports, ports and land crossings, many contend, they are repeatedly singled out for special screening and intrusive questioning about their religious beliefs. Others say they have been marooned overseas, barred from flights to the United States.

‘Stories come pouring out'

“Whenever a group of Muslims sit together … stories come pouring out,” said real estate agent Jeff Siddique, a Pakistan-born U.S. citizen who has lived in Seattle for 35 years. “It’s story after story after story.”

That is supported by a survey released in August by the Pew Research Center, in which 36 percent of Muslim Americans who traveled by air in the last year said they had been singled out for special screening. The Transportation Security Administration does not keep detailed records, but a spokesman said that less than 3 percent of passengers receive a pat down, a primary form of secondary screening.

Several civil rights groups say growing evidence points to targeting Muslims — and people who appear to be Muslim — without credible evidence of a crime or intent to commit one. In an array of legal cases, they are challenging the anti-terrorism bureaucracy to articulate its policy.

Among the questions they want answered: Is there a focus on Muslim travelers encoded in policy or encouraged by training? How do travelers end up on security watch lists, and is there any way to get off them? Does the U.S. government have the right to bar U.S. citizens from flying back into the country?

Homeland Security recently launched an investigation of a flurry of complaints from Muslims who, like Shibly, say border agents went well beyond asking about their travels. Instead, the travelers say, they were questioned extensively about their religious beliefs and practices. Some reported being asked political questions, such as their views on the Iraq War or President Barack Obama.

One complaint filed by the nonprofit Council on American Islamic Relations with Homeland Security and the Justice Department said its Michigan branch alone has received “dozens of reports (from Muslim travelers) … that CBP agents pointed firearms at them, detained and handcuffed them without predication of crimes or charges, and questioned them about their worship habits.”

Shibly’s case is one of five included in a separate complaint filed by the the nonprofit Muslim Advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union in December.

Another case detailed in the complaint is that of New Jersey resident Lawrence Ho, who says that when he reached the U.S. border from Canada by car in February 2010 he was surprised to find the border agent knew that he had converted to Islam. Ho, who is Chinese American, said the border agent questioned him for nearly four hours about his Muslim beliefs. But an email to the CBP to complain about the encounter at the Rainbow Bridge checkpoint in New York didn’t get far.

"In 2001, the U.S. was attacked by Islamist extremists,” wrote a senior CBP officer in an email response to Ho. “If a CBP officer inquires as to a person's religious beliefs in order to uncover signs of extremist tendencies, that officer is well within his authority."

The department's office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties “has notified the complainants and their representatives that it will investigate these allegations and, if appropriate, the department will take corrective action.”

The ACLU and Muslim Advocates also filed a Freedom of Information Act request, seeking all records, standards and statistics pertaining to CBP questioning on religious and political beliefs and practices, border training programs and disclosure of how the travelers’ information is used.

“We hope … (DHS) will condemn the practice of asking any citizen or legal resident of the U.S. about their religious beliefs, political beliefs and religious practices,” said ACLU staff attorney Nusrat Choudhury. “We also hope that (it) will note the troubling nature of the fact that so many Muslim legal residents or citizens are being asked these kinds of questions.”

WASHINGTON, Sept. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization today expressed concern about a spike in reports of anti-Muslim incidents –- including alleged hate crimes in North Carolina, California and New York -- apparently tied to the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) cited incidents such as a burned Quran being delivered to a Bronx mosque, a New York mosque sign being smashed by a speeding driver and an alleged bias-motivated arson attack on an Arab-owned business in California. CAIR urged state and national leaders to challenge rising Islamophobia.

Yesterday, CAIR called on the FBI to investigate an arson fire at a Sikh-owned store in North Carolina as a possible hate crime. (NOTE: Sikh men in beards and turbans are often targeted for discrimination by bigots who mistake them for Muslims.)

The alleged perpetrators reportedly spray-painted "911 Go Home" on the outside of the burned store. Officials say an accelerant was used to start the fire.

"Our nation's political and religious leaders must step up efforts to address the rising level of anti-Muslim sentiment in our society and speak out forcefully against those who promote or exploit Islamophobia," said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper.

He cited other apparently bias-motivated incidents, including threats targeting a Muslim family at a 9/11 air show in California, a package containing hate materials left at a Washington state mosque, the alleged profiling of an Arab-American airline passenger, the targeting of a Texas Muslim restaurant customer with hate graffiti, hate rhetoric used at a rally in Michigan, and anti-Muslim views expressed at a meeting of a Washington state hate group.

Because of recent incidents targeting American Muslims and their institutions, CAIR is urging members of the Muslim community to review security procedures using advice contained in its "Muslim Community Safety Kit."

The man accused of the killing spree in Norway was deeply influenced by a small group of American bloggers and writers who have warned for years about the threat from Islam, lacing his 1,500-page manifesto with quotations from them....

In the document he posted online, Anders Behring Breivik, who is accused of bombing government buildings and killing scores of young people at a Labor Party camp, showed that he had closely followed the acrimonious American debate over Islam.

His manifesto, which denounced Norwegian politicians as failing to defend the country from Islamic influence, quoted Robert Spencer, who operates the Jihad Watch Web site, 64 times, and cited other Western writers who shared his view that Muslim immigrants pose a grave danger to Western culture.

More broadly, the mass killings in Norway, with their echo of the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City by an antigovernment militant, have focused new attention around the world on the subculture of anti-Muslim bloggers and right-wing activists and renewed a debate over the focus of counterterrorism efforts.

The quotes from Spencer in Breivik's manifesto2083: A European Declaration of Independenceare taken from the transcript of a 2006 film, Islam: What the West Needs to Know, which so impressed Breivik that he reproduces it in its entirety.

Another prominent Islamophobe who featured in that film, and is therefore also cited numerous times in Breivik's document, is Walid Shoebat. Recently exposed by CNN as a fraud, Shoebat has been making a good living advising police and security services in the US on counterterrorism.
The message that Shoebat has been delivering to his audiences has been the same message that so appealed to Breivik – that Islam is an inherently violent faith that provides justification for the actions of Al-Qaeda. (See here, here, here and here.)

Spencer himself has been invited to address the FBI. So we're not talking here about some fringe subculture restricted to right-wing cranks in the blogosphere. The anti-Muslim propagandists who provided Breivik with the ideology that led him to carry out his atrocities receive official recognition in the US and are regarded as legitimate figures who can provide important insights into Islam. Hopefully the terrible events in Norway have revealed Spencer, Shoebat and their co-thinkers as the malevolent violence-inspiring hatemongers that they really are, and in future they will be treated accordingly.

Update: Spencer has posted a statement by SIOA and SIOE on Jihad Watch denouncing Breivik as a "disgusting neo-Nazi". But this completely misrepresents the ideology that inspired Breivik's terrorist acts. He quite clearly dissociates himself from neo-Nazism in his manifesto and declares himself to be a "cultural conservative" – a category in which he includes the Islamophobic bloggers and websites of the counter-jihad movement. Indeed, for Breivik, political violence is only one element in the cultural conservative strategy – he sees non-violent anti-Muslim propaganda as playing a no less vital role.

San Juan Capistrano City Councilman Derek Reeve announced at last week's council meeting that he gave one of his dogs — animals considered particularly impure in the Muslim world — the same name as the Muslim prophet Muhammad.

"That's right," Reeve said at the council meeting, "I named my dog Muhammad."

The remarks came during a discussion about a planned dog park in the city. A council action related to the dog park was scheduled for adoption without discussion, but Reeve pulled the item to ask questions and make a brief comment.

Apparently Reeve thought the remark was funny, and so did some meeting attendees, who could be heard laughing on the recording of the meeting.

"I have two new dogs. I'm excited about a dog park," Reeve said. "America and Muhammad may want to play with dogs."

Local Muslim leaders didn't see any humor. It is widely regarded an insult in the Arab world to refer to someone as a dog. And Muhammad is the most common name given to men in the Muslim world.

The Muslim leaders see the comment as an attempt to provoke the larger Muslim community.

"It is un-American, irresponsible and immoral of the Councilman to engage in behavior that will not only serve to fuel anti-Muslim sentiment, but also runs counter to our country's values of unity, respect and pluralism," Munira Syeda, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles wing of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, wrote in an email.

Salam Al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, wasn't as strident but clearly wasn't pleased with the comment. "It's difficult to dignify such childishness," he said. "It doesn't even deserve a condemnation."

Al-Marayati said the comments were "beneath" the Muslim community, which wouldn't come out strongly against them. But he wasn't restrained in his opinion of Reeve.

"I'm sure the dog is more useful to the city than the city councilman [Reeve]," Al-Marayati said.

Mayor Sam Allevato said he was "frankly shocked" when he heard Reeve make the comment. Allevato said elected officials need to be held to a higher standard.

"I do not believe that comment does any good in the furtherance of good relations with members of the Muslim faith," Allevato said. "We have to be mindful as the elected leaders of the city. What we speak from the dais reverberates throughout the community and throughout the organization."

The remark will very likely be discussed at next week's council meeting. Council members are scheduled to consider "free speech and the decorum of the City Council," according to the meeting agenda.

Reeve could not be immediately reached for comment.

This isn't the first time this year that a local city council member has made comments offensive to Muslims. Hundreds turned out at a Villa Park City Council meeting in March to protest comments made by Councilwoman Deborah Pauly, who called attendees at a Muslim charity event "enemies of America."

JEDDAH: The 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has denounced a recent statement made by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a high-profile non-Jewish supporter of Israel, that he considered “Islamic terrorism” as the biggest threat to world peace.

“Harper’s statement will only exacerbate the misunderstanding and suspicion between the West and the Islamic world and obstruct global efforts to confront bigotry and hatred between religions and cultures,” said OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu.

In an interview with CBC News, Harper said the biggest security threat to Canada a decade after 9/11 was “Islamic terrorism.”

He continued: “When people think of Islamic terrorism, they think of Afghanistan, or maybe they think of some place in the Middle East, but the truth is that threat exists all over the world.”

An article written by Dovid Efune in The Huffington Post rated Harper as the No. 1 non-Jew having a positive influence in shaping the Jewish future.

“Harper has been a great friend to Canada’s Jewish community as well as an outspoken supporter of Israeli positions in the international political arena… saying last year, ‘When Israel, the only country in the world whose very existence is under attack, is consistently and conspicuously singled out for condemnation, I believe we are morally obligated to take a stand.’”

Efune, who is director of Algemeiner Journal, commended Harper’s efforts in blocking a G8 resolution in support of US President Barack Obama’s Middle East policy speech that would mention the call for a Palestinian State based on the 1967 lines, while not incorporating other elements of the speech.

This stand “earns him the top spot this year,” Efune wrote in the daily.

Effune said his top 10 list of non-Jewish supporters of Israel includes politicians, activists and business giants. Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, Speaker of the US House of Representatives John Boehner, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and former Spanish Premier Jose Maria Aznar occupy the remaining top five spots.

According to columnist Dr. Debra Chin, Harper is apparently using Canadian governmental authority to advance ultra right-wing ideological goals.

She said Harper was a member of the ultra-right wing Northern Foundation in 1989, quoting a book authored by Trevor Harrison entitled “Of Passionate Intensity.”

In his book, Harrison documents that the foundation comprised neo-Nazi social Darwinist intellectuals, Chin wrote in The Canadian newspaper.

In his comments, the OIC chief said such misleading statements from the prime minister of a sovereign country would create chaos. “The usage of Islamic terrorism is wrong like the usage of Christian terrorism or Jewish terrorism,” he pointed out.

“Islam is a religion of peace and mercy,” the secretary-general said and reiterated his organization’s commitment to combat terrorism and extremism in all its forms. “Our stand is based on Islamic teachings that reject terrorism and violence,” he added.

Ihsanoglu said OIC countries were the main victims of terrorism, suffering heavy human and material losses.

Saudi Arabia, which hosts the OIC headquarters, suffered a series of bombings and attacks since May 2003 that claimed the lives of 350 people.

Hassan Al-Ahdal, director-general for media and public relations at the Makkah-based Muslim World League, expressed his dismay at Harper’s remarks.

“Such irresponsible remarks should not have come from a prime minister. It will give fuel to extremists to carry out terrorist attacks and deepen the division between Islamic and Western cultures. It will also encourage Islamophobes to carry out more attacks against Muslim minorities.”

Al-Ahdal hoped that the Western thinkers would condemn Harper’s remarks in order to strengthen good relations between Muslims and the West.

He said Harper’s remarks would encourage Muslim countries and parents not to send their students to Canada, fearing they would face bad treatment.

“It is quite unfortunate to see that Islamophobia is spreading in the West. Earlier, we have seen such attitudes from the right-wing extremists. Now it has been taken over by leaders like Harper, Sarkozy and Merkel,” he said.

Al-Ahdal urged Muslim countries to take a firm stand against such Islamophobic remarks.

“I hope all Muslim countries will call their Canadian ambassadors to express their strong protest against Harper’s remarks and inform them such incidents would affect Canada’s relationship with Muslims,” he said.

Al-Ahdal underscored the interfaith dialogue initiative launched by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah to promote world peace and stability by enhancing cooperation and understanding between the followers of different faiths.

“The initiative will help bridge the gap between the East and West,” he said and called for strengthening the initiative by holding more meetings between leaders of various faiths.

Frank Miller produced one of the most appalling, offensive and vindictive comics of all time.

By Spencer Ackerman - September 28, 2011

Holy Terror, Miller’s long, long, long-awaited statement on 9/11 and counterterrorism, hit comic book stores Wednesday. Longtime Miller watchers have viewed it with apprehension, hoping that his dark views about the source of that national trauma wouldn’t turn the comic into a vulgar, one-dimensional revenge fantasy. They were wrong. It’s even worse than that.

Miller’s Holy Terror is a screed against Islam, completely uninterested in any nuance or empathy toward 1.2 billion people he conflates with a few murderous conspiracy theorists. It’s no accident that it’s being released ten years after 9/11. This comic would be unthinkable during the unity that the U.S. felt after the attack.

Instead, it’s a perfect cultural artifact of this dark period in American life, when the FBI teaches its agents that “mainstream” Islam is indistinguishable from terrorism and a community center near Ground Zero gets labeled a “victory mosque.” Call it the artwork of 9/11 decadence, when all that remains of a horror is a carefully nurtured grievance.

Holy Terror, the inaugural offering from Legendary Comics, starts out with the Fixer, an ersatz Batman, enjoying a tryst with an ersatz Catwoman when they’re interrupted by a nail bomb. The culprit: a “humanities major” named Amina, an Islamist version of the psychopathic Rorschach from Watchmen, who sneers that the “haughty” skyline of Empire City is like “sharpened sticks aimed at the eyes of God.”

The Fixer’s response is to go to war — indiscriminately. “We give them what they want, minus the innocent victims,” the Fixer thinks as he opens fire. To bring the point home Miller draws 14 stereotypical Muslim faces around the righteous anti-hero. Naturally, the only way to learn more about the next attack is to torture a surviving terrorist — which Miller illustrates P*o*r*nographically — even though the Scary Muslim says “pain means nothing to me,” so it’s not like the Fixer is torturing, you know, a human being.

“So Mohammed,” the Fixer says, “Pardon me for guessing your name, but you’ve got to admit the odds are pretty good that it’s Mohammed.” Naturally, the terrorists are amassing an army in a mosque, against whose walls “the night winds blow away seven centuries.” That’s the tenor of the book, though I won’t spoil the ending.

The tragedy is that Miller is no hack. Throughout his 35-year career... check his resume: from Daredevil to Ronin to Sin City, Dark Knight Returns. He is also at the height of his cultural influence. The film adaptations of Sin City and 300 were so successful that Hollywood actually let him direct The Spirit. Word is that the upcoming Daredevil movie reboot will be based on Miller’s “Born Again” storyline.

That means it’s a mistake to write off Holy Terror as unimportant or a stumble in an otherwise great career. It’s a cultural flag, planted to serve as a “reminder that we’re in the midst of a long war,” Miller told Comic-Con International this year, against an enemy that’s “pernicious, deceptive and merciless and wants nothing less than total destruction.”

It’s hard to escape the conclusion that Miller is emotionally unprepared for actually defeating al-Qaida. He’s bought into the myth of a “Long War” for so long that the only measurement he has for victory is that the U.S. keeps aimlessly fighting. Once the Fixer has his mission, he observes, “I am at peace. And at war.”

Oh, and Miller has one other metric for success: “really piss[ing] people off,” as he told Comic-Con. By that he means his fellow Americans, who are at risk of believing that Islam isn’t out to kill their grandmothers. Americans are “naïve,” one of the plotters in Holy Terror cackles.

Miller is hardly the only one to think so. His comic is the latest in a recent line of bigoted statements against Islam masquerading as a truth that liberals are too craven to accept. The same dreck is on display with the group that led the summer 2010 fight against the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”: Stop Islamization of America, which the Anti-Defamation League has labeled a “conspiratorial” extremist group. One of its ringleaders, the blogger Pamela Geller, is now threatening to sue New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority for rejecting one of her ads, which calls opponents of Israel “savages.” For Geller’s self-righteous ilk, rejection by the mainstream is proof of their self-evident virtue, a reminder that the rest of the country just can’t handle the reality of the “Muslim threat.”

It would seem that al-Qaida isn’t enough for this cohort, so they enlarge the problem to all of Islam. Through this prism, they play-act a civilizational war, one that’s supposed to give life — and America — meaning beyond the mundane reality of vigilant counterterrorism. It’s more of a fantasy than anything you get on Wednesday at the comic store.

Eid al-Adha sacrifice blocked by commissioner of Sunrise, FL

Sunrise commissioner blocks Muslim sacrifice of goats and lambs

By Susannah Bryan - November 2, 2011
Disturbed by the prospect of lambs and goats being slaughtered in her city, Sunrise Commissioner Sheila Alu single-handedly blocked a Muslim religious ceremony set to take place on Sunday.

"Yes, I was trying to stop it," Alu said on Wednesday. "It's shut down. I'm trying to protect innocent animals. This is not an appropriate setting for the slaughtering of animals in an open field in a city that's as populated as Sunrise. Usually these religious ceremonies take place in a rural area."

The news did not sit well with Nezar Hamze, executive director of the South Florida Council on American-Islamic Relations based in Pembroke Pines.

"Wow," Hamze said. "That is very upsetting. We'll find another venue. But that's very disturbing. I'm very disappointed in that. We asked for permission and went through the proper channels and now it's off because a commissioner has a problem with it."

Muslims from local mosques had planned to gather at a 45-acre farm on Hiatus Road in Sunrise to celebrate the Eid ul-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice, Hamze said. The holiday honors Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son, before God provided a sacrificial lamb instead.

The day also marks the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims are urged to make at least once in their lifetime.

"The meat is sacrificed according to state and Islamic law," Hamze said. "There is no bloodbath. It's very humane. It's a slit on the throat real quick. And they bleed out in a couple seconds. The animals do not suffer."

The Florida Humane Slaughter Act governs the handling and killing of livestock, and a 1993 U.S. Supreme Court decision stemming from a case in Miami-Dade County upheld the right for animal sacrifices for religious purposes. That decision grew out of a lawsuit filed by the Lukumi Babalu Aye church charging the city of Hialeah with illegally enacting ordinances designed to persecute Santeria practitioners.

That means animal sacrifices for religious purposes enjoy protection from government interference, said Derek Newton, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

"If [Alu] was acting on her own, it becomes a question of politics rather than a legal argument," Newton said. "If she called from her office and said she was commissioner so and so, that might be a problem."

Alu said she called as a resident, not a commissioner.

"I have no ill will toward the Muslim faith," she said. "I'm just an animal lover."

After learning that there were no legal grounds for blocking the ceremony, Alu said she contacted a man who works for the owners to verify that they were allowing the ceremony. She said he told her they were not aware the event was taking place on their property and that the caretaker had improperly given permission for the ceremony.

"I don't want to interfere with anyone's religious beliefs, but if you want to slaughter animals it should be done in a slaughterhouse," Alu said. She says she believes it is inhumane to slaughter the animals in a field. "They stab them in the throat. It's horrible."

"I'm not a vegetarian," she said. "I just don't agree with the inhumane treatment of animals. Looking at how they're slaughtered brings tears to my eyes."

But Hamze said their way of slaughtering the animals is more humane than a slaughterhouse. He says sometimes the slaughterhouse will use a hammer to kill the animal and it takes longer for it to die.

The property owners, Curtis and Marilyn Deem, did not answer a message left on their home phone. Derek Matherly, the property caretaker, ridiculed Alu's concerns.

"I find it appalling that people are so upset when they eat lambs and goats every day," he said. "Let's go back a couple thousand years ago. They used to slaughter animals and then burn them for sacrifice. I don't see the big story here. It's not like animals are being tortured."

Wednesday evening, Hamze said the caretaker called to cancel. The ceremony, however, will take place at a new, undisclosed location.

MOBILE, Ala (Reuters) - The owner of a large southwest Alabama car dealership derided as "Taliban Toyota" by a competitor has been awarded $7.5 million in damages after a jury trial for his slander claim.

Iranian-born Shawn Esfahani, owner of Eastern Shore Toyota in Daphne, Alabama, sought $28 million in compensatory and punitive damages from Bob Tyler Toyota, claiming employees at that Pensacola, Florida-based dealership falsely portrayed him as an Islamist militant to customers.

"The feeling I received in the courtroom for the truth to come out was worth a lot more than any money anybody can give me," Esfahani told Reuters on Tuesday.

Esfahani's lawsuit said that Bob Tyler sales manager Fred Kenner told at least one couple considering buying from Eastern Shore Toyota in 2009 that Esfahani was of Middle Eastern descent and was "helping fund the insurgents there and is also laundering money for them."

Esfahani, a naturalized U.S. citizen, fled his native Iran in 1980 following the Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah and swept Shi'ite Muslim clergy to power, his lawsuit said. He opened his car dealership in 2007.

A Bob Tyler salesman was accused of telling the same couple that Esfahani was from Iraq and calling him a "terrorist" who put soldiers including the salesman's brother in harm's way.

"(Esfahani) is funneling money back to his family and other terrorists. I have a brother over there and what you're doing is helping kill my brother," the salesman told the couple when he called them on the Eastern Shore sales floor, according to the suit.

The jury deliberated for three hours before awarding Esfahani $2.5 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages on Monday evening.

Bob Tyler's attorney Jeffrey Ingram could not be reached for comment on Tuesday, and Tyler and Kenner both declined to comment on the verdict through a dealership spokesman.

Esfahani said the dollar amount awarded by the jury was irrelevant unless the case sets a precedent by which other business owners can seek recourse against tactics he considers "un-American."

"This case didn't take aim at just Mr. Tyler," he said. "It was intended to address any other business that resorts to those kinds of actions to win at their game unfairly."

"We will attempt to teach you all the necessary information you need to obtain your [Concealed Handgun License]," the ad says. Then towards the end, it adds: "If you are a socialist liberal and/or voted for the current campaigner in chief, please do not take this class. You have already proven that you cannot make a knowledgeable and prudent decision under the law."

And then: "If you are a non-Christian Arab or Muslim, I will not teach you the class with no shame; I am Crockett Keller, thank you, and God bless America."

The ad ran for six days on KHLB, Mason's local station. It's also been heard tens of thousands of times on Youtube.

Keller, 65, has said in media interviews that he just regards the message is just common sense. "The fact is, if you are a devout Muslim, then you cannot be a true American," he told local news station KVUE, while fielding calls congratulating him for his stance. "Why should I arm these people to kill me? That's suicide."

"I call it exercising my right to choose who I instruct in how to use a dangerous weapon," he added.

But the state of Texas may disagree. The Department of Public Safety said in a statement that certified instructors of handgun training are required to comply with all applicable state and federal laws, and added:

"Conduct by an instructor that denied service to individuals on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion would place that instructor's certification by the Department at risk of suspension or revocation." The department has said it has begun an investigation.

It seems unlikely that Keller will back down, though. "I'm not going to do it," he told the local news. "I will give up my license to teach before I will teach them," he said, referring to Obama voters and Muslims.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Northeast Ohio native Suhad Hasan, a hijab-wearing Muslim, says neither her head scarf nor her religion should be an issue where she works.

But she said they were while she was a sales associate at the Old Navy clothing store in Santa Clara, Calif., three years ago. Hasan said she was assigned to work in the fitting room and was never offered training for other positions that was given to non-Muslims, despite her repeated requests to be trained.

After several months and still working in the fitting room, Hasan moved back to Ohio, only to be denied what she said was supposed to be an automatic transfer to a job in another Old Navy store. She found herself without a job, all because of what she describes as discrimination because of who she is and what she looks like.

"I was born and raised in the United States and I pay taxes like everybody else," said Hasan, 39, now a Parma resident who last month sued Gap Inc., the parent company of Old Navy. "What I wear on my head and the god that I believe in should not be an issue in the workplace."

The number of complaints like Hasan's is steadily rising. Equal Employment Opportunity Commissionstatistics show that religious discrimination complaints in workplace settings have more than doubled from a little over a decade ago, resulting in roughly $10 million in settlements. Last year, nearly 3,800 were filed -- 136 of them with the Cleveland EEOC office.

"Religion has increasingly moved into the private sphere, so when it does pop up in the workplace, we're less equipped to deal with it in a rational and even-handed manner," said John Gordon, chairman of the religion department at Baldwin-Wallace College, who believes the increase is a result of being a more multi-cultural, more multi-faith country.

Gap Inc. did not respond to emails or phone calls on Wednesday. However, in an email Thursday, spokeswoman Debbie Mesloh said the company denies allegations raised by Hasan in her complaint. "We are an equal opportunity employer with robust anti-discrimination policies and programs, and we strive to ensure a welcoming and inclusive environment for all employees," Mesloh said.

Many of the EEOC complaints by employees involve wearing head garb or those who say they work for companies that refuse to accommodate their requests for religious days off.

Cynthia Stankiewicz, enforcement manager for the EEOC Cleveland field office, said not allowing time off for religious observances is a common issue. She said many cases come about when employers aren't aware of employees' rights or when employers don't attempt to accommodate requests that do not pose a hardship on the business.

She cited a case where an assistant manager at a local fast-food restaurant fired an employee after only a day on the job after claims that the worker's headscarf was a fire hazard.

"In most cases, employers don't have a good valid job-related reason for religious discrimination," she said. "It's often based on fears, myths and stereotypes."

The law requires employers to make reasonable accommodations to "sincerely held" religious beliefs of employees as long as doing so poses no undue hardship on the employer, EEOC says. When that doesn't happen, EEOC said it steps in but only after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement with the employer.

A few months ago, the commission stepped in and sued a Rent-A-Center in Washington, D.C., on behalf of an employee, saying the company violated federal law when it failed to accommodate the store manager's religious beliefs, and then fired him because of his religion. EEOC charged that the manager, a Seventh-Day Adventist, had asked to be excused from working on Saturdays before sundown, but his request was denied.

Last summer, a Toledo-based nursing home settled a religious discrimination lawsuit, paying the employee $30,000 and offering training to all employees, including managers in the region, on recognizing and preventing religious discrimination, EEOC said.

"An employee should not be forced to choose between his faith and his job," Lynette Barnes, a regional attorney for EEOC, said in a press release involving the Rent-A-Center case.

Still, an employer can turn down a request if that means training someone else, at a substantial cost, to cover for the worker who doesn't want to work on Saturdays for religious reasons, Stankiewicz said.

Also, employers are not required to pay premium or overtime costs in order to accommodate religious needs. Or undue hardships could become an issue if a collective bargaining agreement includes rules regarding seniority and assignments.

"It's a complex thing. Almost every case is unique," said Gordon at Baldwin Wallace. "A particular employer may really have a bias or an employee might be unreasonable."

While employers tend to be familiar with sexual harassment, family leave, age discrimination, and the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers may not even be aware of the law regarding religion in the workplace until they face a religious challenge, said Julia Shearson, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations-Ohio in Cleveland.

Civil rights attorney and law professor Avery Friedman, who has represented employees for the last four decades, said he's not surprised about the increase in EEOC complaints about religious workplace issues.

"The rise relates to how certain groups are perceived, coupled with people who carry their faith-based precepts and act as missionaries in the workplace," he said.

Since returning to Ohio, Hasan has landed a job as a home health aide. She said she is still shaken by her experience with Old Navy.

"I was raised to respect all religions. But when you attack my hijab, you're demeaning my beliefs and my religion," she said.

Hertz has fired 25 Muslim workers at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for refusing to clock out while taking breaks to pray during their shifts.

Hertz sent termination notices to the Somali Muslim workers Thursday after suspending them on Sept. 30 for failing to clock out -- a move that the workers union, Teamsters Local 117, saidunfairly targeted the workers for their religion.

"The employer is saying this is not about religion. The problem is, this is only enforced policy with respect to prayer breaks," said Tracey Thompson, secretary-treasurer of the union. "I'm quite certain people take many, many smoking breaks, or go across the street to get coffee. But when they singled out this group of workers when they are engaging in prayer, it is hard to make it about anything other than religion."

On Sept. 30, Muslim shuttle drivers were notified that they would have to begin clocking out and clocking in for prayer breaks or risk being suspended or fired. The drivers were told of the policy change as they entered the prayer room one day, according to the union, without any notification to the union about a change in contract.

The union noted that non-Muslim employees don't have to clock out for their mini-breaks for cigarettes or coffee.

Hertz contended that some workers were abusing the mini-break system, lingering long after prayers were finished before going back to work. It was unfair to other, non-Muslim workers, it said. The company said workers were given ample notification of the change and that they would still be paid for the breaks.

The two sides said in September that they hoped to negotiate a solution, but the sides could not agree.

"We made repeated offers to suspended employees to return to work and take paid prayer breaks and they repeatedly refused to accept the clocking out agreement," said Richard Broome, a spokesman for Hertz. "We made it clear if they wouldn't accept, we'd terminate. We gave them letters [Thursday], and then gave them an additional 24 hours before we implemented the terminations."

The union, however, argued that Hertz should have been willing to negotiate the matter in front of a third-party arbiter while allowing the workers to continue to earn a living wage.

"It was very, very frustrating," Thompson said. "It was clearly just about corporate power and control. I said, 'There's no harm to you as a corporation to suspend enforcement for six weeks [while in arbitration], while the harm to the individuals is significant, and the balance favored honoring the individuals' personal freedoms.' But they said no because they could."

Broome said that some of the workers had accepted the company's offer and returned to work, but the union said it is proud to stand behind those who did not.

"These workers, who had to leave Somalia, come to U.S., get whatever low-wage job they could get, to then have to make the decision between their livelihood and their dignity and their religion, Hertz put them in that incredibly impossible box," Thompson said. "I am incredibly proud to represent these workers that have taken a stand for what is right and just."

This week, Bloomberg Businessweek said Crestwood was Missouri's best community in which to raise children, citing the community's great schools, low tax rates and excellent municipal services. One of those municipal services is the ability of any resident to use space in Crestwood City Hall as a meeting place.

All the group has to do is fill out a one-page form for a permit and agree to the city's meeting-room guidelines. Those include leaving the room clean and orderly and refraining from "loud, boisterous, rude or other unacceptable conduct."

The First Amendment dictates that the city can't censor the content of any such meeting, however hateful or fictional its message.

And so it was on Wednesday, that about a dozen people attended an event in the Crestwood aldermanic chambers called "What America Must Learn from the Fort Hood Massacre."

The St. Louis chapter of ACT! for America, a Florida-based, anti-Islam group that calls itself a National Security Organization, organized the meeting, which featured the screening of an hourlong DVD lecture by the organization's executive director, Guy Rodgers.

The event was advertised in a weekly newspaper. Referring to the Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people in a rampage in Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009, the ad copy said, "It is essential that Americans understand why homegrown Jihadists like Nidal Hasan do what they do."

Political forces set on eliminating a particular religious or ethnic group often use propaganda to convince the masses of their righteousness. A key device of persuasion is the systematic dehumanization of those in the target group.

In Nazi Germany, Jews were often portrayed in anti-Semitic literature — most famously in Julius Streicher's "Der Stürmer" — as vermin or cockroaches. By routinely referring to the hated Tutsis as inyezi, or cockroaches, broadcasters on Hutu-run radio goaded ordinary Rwandans into killing their neighbors with machetes during the 1994 genocide.

Genocide scholar James Waller writes that dehumanization occurs after the target group has been defined as what sociologists call the out-group. When the in-group exaggerates the differences between itself and an out-group, it creates a bias "toward information that enhances the differences" between the two groups, instead of the similarities, writes Waller.

In Rwanda, Hutu ideology defined Tutsis as alien to the country despite their long history as natives. The Nazis assigned an imaginary hereditary superiority to Aryanness, and defined Judaism as anathema to that superiority.

Nazi Germany is seen as a chapter in history. The massacre of nearly a million Tutsis over 100 days happened in Africa, far from suburban St. Louis.

The dehumanization of a religious group, an initial step toward the moral disengagement that leads to radical evil, couldn't happen in 21st century America, right?

Unfortunately for American Muslims, we are about to enter a presidential election year, during which groups like ACT! for America and the Clarion Fund have historically spread anti-Islam messages that promote fear of "the other." Both groups formed in the wake of the unprecedented attacks on the United States by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001.

It's a message that has been trumpeted from Crestwood City Hall before.

Last September, a group called the New Gravois Township Conservative Republican Party showed a film called "The Third Jihad" in a City Hall meeting room The film was produced by the Clarion Fund, an organization with historic ties to Aish HaTorah, an orthodox Jewish education network based in Jerusalem, and claims that terrorists have infiltrated the United States with the intent of "eliminating western civilization from within."

After receiving complaints about the video, the city decreed a policy forbidding political and religious groups from using City Hall's meeting rooms. The city's aldermen suspended the ban two months later after strenuous opposition from members of the New Gravois Township Conservative Republican Party. Roy Robinson, Crestwood's mayor at the time, apologized to the Republican committeeman for the ban.

The DVD lecture on Wednesday evening in Crestwood was a walk through the Quran's violent passages, which Rodgers depicted as coming from the latter part of Muhammad's life. He said that Islam's prophet gained more followers with violence than he had with an earlier, more peaceful approach to spreading the faith.

The lecture soon moved on to the Obama administration's failures to name the "threat" against the United States (jihad, according to Rodgers.) The DVD lecture finished with a swipe at the government, academia and the media for playing along with terrorists and failing to recognize that the U.S. Constitution is in danger of being replaced by sharia, or Islamic, law at the direction of the Muslim Brotherhood.

When the lights went up, the crowd wanted to talk. Use of the word "Muslim" was rare. Instead, the audience preferred the terms "they" and "them."

"When they move to a new country, they don't assimilate," one man said.

"They don't value education in the same way we do," said Liz Trent, ACT! for America's Southern Illinois chapter leader.

"We celebrate birthdays, and they celebrate death anniversaries," Trent added. "They are the opposite of us. They celebrate death and we celebrate life."

"I heard the Saudis are funding chairs in our universities," a woman said.

"They have infiltrated our culture at every level," said Trent.

"What do we need to do to stop it?" a woman asked.

Trent said that since a federal judge blocked Oklahoma's decision to prohibit its courts from considering sharia law in its decisions, the new front was 'specific laws." Coming legislation, for instance, would "ban anyone from mutilating their child's genitals," Trent said. Someone asked if that wouldn't be covered under existing law.

"No, no," Trent said. "Slavery, murder, abuse of a child — all of that is legal under Islam, so it's protected."

When a target group is identified as a race or religion that the in-group sees as inferior or threatening, dehumanization follows, writes Waller. The target group is stigmatized as alien. The in-group uses language suggesting the target group deserves persecution.

In the civic heart of Missouri's best child-rearing community, the executive director of an anti-Islam organization looked down from a white screen and told a dozen people that tolerance was the enemy in the fight against Muslims.

"They're everywhere," one woman in the audience whispered to her friend. "They're like cockroaches."

It's these people who are everywhere in Muslim countries sitting on high paying cushy jobs and when some civil unrest occurs (eg. Tunisia, Egypt) then it is these people who gather like cockroaches at the airport in an effort to get out.

(SACRAMENTO, CA, 12/5/11) –- The Sacramento Valley office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SV) today contacted the FBI and local police to seek the investigation of a possible bias motive for the stabbing of a Sikh man at Fresno Yosemite International Airport on Sunday evening.

CAIR-SV says the man was reportedly stabbed while waiting in a public area near the Transportation Security Administration terminal. The suspect, who was apprehended by police, is described as a 26-year-old white man. The victim was treated for non-life threatening injuries and then boarded his flight. Police say there were no words exchanged between the two men before the attack.

"We ask local law enforcement authorities and the FBI to probe a possible bias motive in this case," said CAIR-SV Executive Director Basim Elkarra. "Sikh men who wear beards and turbans as part of their faith are often targeted by bigots who mistake them for Muslims."

He noted that a Hindu man was assaulted last month in San Jose, Calif., by a group of men who called him a "terrorist."

Last fall, CAIR-SV called for an FBI investigation of an attack on a Sikh cab driver in West Sacramento. The driver said his passengers made anti-Muslim remarks during the attack. Two men were later arrested on charges of felony assault and commission of a hate crime.